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LowEndBox Kickstarter Competition #2 - $1500 worth of prizes

LowEndBox Kickstarter is Back!

LowEndBox is happy to announce the return of the LowEndBox Kickstarter competition! We ran this competition last September, but for whatever reason the winner hasn’t taken up the prize yet. This competition will help anyone looking to enter the hosting market the opportunity to win everything needed to keep a host running for six months!

  • Node Specs
  • Intel Xeon E3-1240v2
  • 4 x 1TB Hard Drives
  • LSI 9260 w/bbu
  • 32GB RAM
  • 10TB Bandwidth
  • 1Gbit Port
  • /25 Range (126 IPs)
  • Professional Website
  • Master Server
  • Intel Quadcore CPU
  • 500GB HDDs RAID 1
  • 8GB RAM
  • Domain Name
  • SSL Certificate
  • WHMCS License
  • SolusVM License
  • Free consulting

The kickstarter is a competition which aims to financially assist an individual or entity into the hosting market. One successful applicant will win everything listed above for 6 months!

These servers can be located with LEB’s parent company, ColoCrossing, in either Buffalo, NY or Dallas, TX or Los Angeles. You can also select two locations, one for master and slave. As well as the two servers, this prize includes: a 6 month SolusVM & WHMCS licence, professionally designed website and free consulting from industry leaders. Click “Read More” To find out more information about the competition.

For this kick starter, we have decided to include more things into the prize. We have tried to think of everything possibly requires to get you up and running. If we have missed anything, or think we should add something, please email us!

Unlike last time, when a panel of respectable hosts chose the winner, the winner will be picked by you the community. LEB staff will review each application to make sure that it ticks all the boxes. We will then upload certain answers to from the application to a specially set up website. Personal information, or anything that we deem sensitive, will not be posted. LEB/LET readers will then be able to vote for their winner. All applications will be securely deleted once the competition is over.

# How To Enter
We have put together a list of questions below in relation to your vision and your plan, not overly scientific questions that we would like you to fill out. You do not have to do every question and can send alternative information if you wish. Send your entries to liam@lowendbox.com

QUESTIONS

Send all your entries to liam@lowendbox.com

## General Questions
a1) LowEndBox/LowEndTalk Username
a2) Email Address
a3) Age
a4) Country

## About You
b1) Why are you entering this competition?
b2) What experience do you have in the industry?
b3) If you have worked previously for other providers please list them?
b4) Have you ever worked for or been associated with a deadpool provider?

## About Your Vision
c1) What is your vision for your provider?
c2) What specifically will make your provider unique to existing providers?
c3) What qualities/skills do you possess that are advantageous to your vision?
c4) What qualities/skills do you believe are required for the long-term viability and sustainability of your vision?
c5) If you have these great ideas why aren’t you executing these ideas now? Why is your vision not already a provider?

## Building Your Vision
d1) What is your target market?
d2) How will you connect with this market?
d3) Are you confident that this market can sustain you?
d4) Are you willing to make financial self-investment to build your vision?

## Your Capabilities To Serve Your Vision?
e1) What is your level of technical experience?
e2) What is your level of problem-solving capabilities?
e3) How much time can you assign to make your vision of a provider become a reality?
e4) How much time can you assign over the long-term to ensure it’s viability and sustainability in to the future?

## Plans and Projections
f1) What virtualisation technology will you be working with?
f2) How many plans would you start with?
f3) Please list those plans in detail (CPU,RAM,HDD..etc) and assign a dollar value in USD or converted to USD.
f4) What is your 3 month milestone?
f5) What is your 6 month milestone?
f6) What is your 1 year milestone?
f7) What is your 2 year milestone?

## Margins & Profits
After the 6 months has passed your lease on the servers will be $200/Month, an additional $16/Month for WHMCS and then an approximate of $10/Month depending on your Virtualisation Panel choice. Lets give you a buffer and associate your total monthly cost for the operation at $250.
g1) What profit margin are you aiming for in percentage?
g2) How many customers do you assume you can fit on your server?
g3) What is the minimum amount you expect to extract from your server per month excluding costs?
g4) What is the minimum amount you expect to extract from your server per month including costs?
g5) What is the maximum amount you expect to extract from your server per month excluding costs?
g6) What is the maximum amount you expect to extract from your server per month including costs?

PS: Thanks for entering!
h1) Anything else you want to add for us to consider as part of your entry?


# Terms and Conditions
By entering this competition you accept the following:

Servers are provided to you free for 6 months, after 6 months you can either lease the server for $200/Month or enter a lease to own agreement with ColoCrossing.

All software is provided to you for 6 months, after 6 months you agree to pay for the WHMCS license and other associated software license panels granted to you as part of the competition.

You accept that should you be chosen the winner once all prizes are passed on you are responsible to adhere to all terms and conditions of the provider.

The winner must claim there prize within 30 days of winning. This can be extended if the winner clearly specifies why they need more time.

You will be required to signup directly with companies such as ColoCrosing and WHMCS directly, LowEndBox will have no relationship with your account.

Domain Name must be available and may not exceed purchase price of $25.

All decisions are final, and you accept that we may alter the terms of entry.

Competition closes August 31st 2013 00:00EST (UTC +10:00HRS)

37 Comments

  1. Very nice gift :)
    I wish I could start a company, but I’m still lack of knowledge in Linux. So I will pass, and will wait for the winner. I wish the winner this time can be a success hosting company :)

    July 21, 2013 @ 10:39 pm | Reply
  2. haha~nice day

    July 21, 2013 @ 10:46 pm | Reply
  3. I have been doing research for a while now and I am looking to start a webhosting and VPS company and I think it is a great opportunity to get initial funding from LEB. However, I need two other Linux server expert. Let me know if anyone is in for a partnership. My email is hamroportal@gmail.com.

    Thank you

    July 22, 2013 @ 12:07 am | Reply
  4. Jonathan:

    This is a great opportunity. Maybe I need a server expert.

    July 22, 2013 @ 1:30 am | Reply
  5. Constrict:

    Should be an age limit IMO. that’s all :)

    July 22, 2013 @ 1:44 am | Reply
  6. Best of luck to all the entries! Nice to see another great competition

    July 22, 2013 @ 2:28 am | Reply
  7. How can the master server have raid array with only one drive?

    July 22, 2013 @ 2:32 am | Reply
  8. Jath:

    Im 14 do you think I can do this? I know a lot of about servers. I play minecraft alot.

    July 22, 2013 @ 2:43 am | Reply
  9. Mr. Obvious:

    Perhaps you should include a “The winner must claim their prize within a certain amount of time” clause, to prevent what happened last time.

    July 22, 2013 @ 5:40 am | Reply
  10. Hope we find a winner this time! All the best.

    July 22, 2013 @ 9:30 am | Reply
  11. Hi,

    I would suggest an Age limit for this competition, i dont think you can expect a 14-15 years old boy could actually maintain a company, without firstly having experiences.

    You could say he can get experience with building the startup or company, but on behalf of who will those experience will be built ? on the back of the customer! So the customer will suffer :)

    Also someone who does not put his own money, will have less care :) since even if he loses them, at first it wasnt his money..

    July 22, 2013 @ 12:15 pm | Reply
    • Maybe so, but I am sure LEB admin and the people doing it will use their heads in this respect

      July 22, 2013 @ 4:22 pm | Reply
  12. No, I am not of a management kind. But if winner needs a system administrator with approx. 2 decades of experience, it would be interesting to assist :)

    July 22, 2013 @ 2:17 pm | Reply
  13. Servers are provided to you free for 6 months, after 6 months you can either lease the server for $200/Month or enter a lease to own agreement with ColoCrossing.

    After the 6 months has passed your lease on the server will be $150/Month, an additional $16/Month for WHMCS and then an approximate of $10/Month depending on your Virtualisation Panel choice. Lets give you a buffer and associate your total monthly cost for the operation at $180.

    They conflict.

    One says $150/mo…

    One says $200/mo

    July 22, 2013 @ 3:53 pm | Reply
  14. villageidiot:

    What is the length of server contract? ie if the winner isn’t up to running it as a profitable business can they cancel after the 6 months or are they tied to it for years? Sorry for the silly question but not having co located before I don’t know how that works.

    July 22, 2013 @ 6:05 pm | Reply
    • Yes. You’re not obligated to continue. In a ideal world, 30 days notice would be welcome.

      July 22, 2013 @ 10:03 pm | Reply
  15. What if award 2 winners? Since last winner did not take it, why not provide 2 prizes =)

    July 22, 2013 @ 11:56 pm | Reply
  16. Veer:

    @liam do you think it is ok to call colocrossing as the parent company of LEB?
    I thought it was just a sponsor.

    July 23, 2013 @ 12:40 am | Reply
    • ColoCrossing owns LEB/LET and has owned it for the past 6 months or so or possbily more.

      July 23, 2013 @ 12:49 am | Reply
    • perennate:

      LEB isn’t a company.

      July 23, 2013 @ 2:59 am | Reply
    • owner can sponsor their own promotion, right?

      July 23, 2013 @ 3:14 am | Reply
  17. renw0rp:

    I have no experience in hosting. Can anyone make a draft how such a bussiness could be profitable? I don’t see it possible.

    cost of hardware: $250/month

    resources:
    4 cores (8 threads)
    32GB RAM
    4x1TB HDD (so either risky 4TB, or RAIDed 2TB)
    10TB BW (quite little)
    126IPs

    for example RAMNODE offers:
    *KVM cached 256MB RAM, 20GB RAID10, 1TB BW ~$3.7/mth

    so having hardware as above (however no SSD cache) u can fit maybe ~100VPSes (actually less bcoz of HDD space) so you earn just $370-$250=$120 and have to manage server with 100ppl (and you might not fit in 10TB BW limit what will also cost money). So how can you get median US salary from such a bussiness? (~$50k/yr)

    July 25, 2013 @ 10:39 am | Reply
    • pcjamesy:

      You could look as this as a way for a new provider to get started and get their name out. Yes for KVM the margins would be low on this server but with the money that you make during the first 6 months you could purchase and collocate a server where you would be able to make a better profit off each client.

      July 27, 2013 @ 12:12 pm | Reply
    • You just need a lot of servers. So if it’s $120/month profit each then you need 34 or more servers to get that salary you’re after. An unmanaged server doesn’t create that much support. If there are special needs like management you charge for it. It’s doable. You just need volume.

      July 27, 2013 @ 12:28 pm | Reply
    • Reece:

      Using Ramnode as an example isn’t a good idea they’re on another level all together :P

      July 27, 2013 @ 6:50 pm | Reply
  18. When will the entries be going up for voting? Does voting start August 31st, or does it start sooner so that the winner can be announced then?

    August 8, 2013 @ 1:48 pm | Reply
    • Hi jcrawfordor,

      I had originally planned to run the actually entries until August 31st. Then there would be a week or two for votes to come in. I’ll speak with the team and assess how many entrants we’ve received in a week to see if we can bring that forward.

      Best,

      Liam.

      August 8, 2013 @ 9:32 pm | Reply
  19. We are going to apply, I am assuming you can apply as a team? It is myself, Brad Miller, and my partner, Jay Wall.

    We are working on our entry now, thanks for putting on the contest!

    August 19, 2013 @ 6:35 pm | Reply
  20. One thing that I think would be very cool to include in the prize package is an LLC registration with RocketLawyer.com or another online service. LLC is very important.

    August 19, 2013 @ 8:23 pm | Reply

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